Developers see opportunity in nanotechnology

Vision would wrap tiny technology in big package called 'Nano World'Facility planned for Pearland to turn research into business opportunities

ERIC BERGER, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Monday, November 24, 2008

Photo: HISTORIC REAL ESTATE

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An artist's concept shows the WaterLights District in Pearland, which would include a waterway, condominiums, hotels, office buildings and a facility that would promote nanotechnology development.

An artist's concept shows the WaterLights District in Pearland, which would include a waterway, condominiums, hotels, office buildings and a facility that would promote nanotechnology development.

Photo: HISTORIC REAL ESTATE

Developers see opportunity in nanotechnology

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A local developer and a group of scientists hope to show that even the little stuff is bigger in Texas.

They want to create something called "Nano World Headquarters" just south of Houston in a 150-acre Pearland development called the WaterLights District.

The bold, but still unfunded, plan calls for the development of a large facility where nascent nanotechnology companies can gain access to lab space and expensive, sensitive equipment without having to buy it.

Nanotechnology involves the design and creation of materials at the molecular scale, tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair. Potential applications range from super-light, durable spacecraft to tiny, disease-busting robots in the bloodstream.

Such business incubators are seen as critical to nurturing laboratory breakthroughs into commercial enterprises. Historically, Houston has had a poor reputation for shepherding research in such fields as biotechnology into successful businesses. Those kinds of endeavors have led some areas, such as Massachusetts and California, to become national leaders in biotech research and development.

With nanotechnology, Houston has some built-in advantages over other parts of the country. The basic research of the late Rick Smalley, Rice University's Nobel Prize-winning nanoscientist, and others has made the institution a world leader in the field. The region also has large industrial bases in energy, health and aerospace, fields in which nanotechnology is expected to make a significant impact.

"Houston's in a race to become the global leader of nanotechnology," said the project's developer, David Goswick. "This is how we can win."

Goswick's company, Historic Real Estate, began constructing the $700 million WaterLights District earlier this year near the Sam Houston Tollway and Highway 288. The project, he says, will include three hotels, two Class A office buildings, a row of restaurants that will line a canal similar to that of San Antonio's Riverwalk or The Woodlands Waterway, and condominiums. The first developments should open in about 18 months.

So how does nanotechnology fit into a mixed-use development?

Goswick said it's part of a vision that grew out of discussions with Smalley, who long sought ways to use science to better society. Smalley died of leukemia in 2005.

Developing ideas

The overall plan is ambitious. The nanotechnology "headquarters" would eventually include the shared-equipment facility, with such instruments as costly microscopes and machines to manipulate tiny materials, as well as lab and office space for start-up companies. There are also plans for a nanotechnology museum as well as a public education center.

Under the proposal, the nano headquarters would underpin the WaterLights development. Some scientists working at the headquarters might want to live in the residential units, Goswick said. The scientists and companies might also periodically fill hotel space with nanoscience conventions and meetings.

For local nanoscientists, the goal is not to dominate academic research into nanotechnology — that's happening at institutions around the world — but rather to become a world leader in developing ideas into goods and perhaps creating something of a "Nano Valley" from the Texas Medical Center south along Texas 288 to Pearland.

"At first, I was surprised at how big David was thinking," said Wade Adams, director of the Smalley Institute for Nano-scale Science and Technology at Rice.

"I think it was the second meeting with him before it really hit me as to how arrogant it is to declare yourself the Nano World Headquarters. But then it hit me — hell, this is Houston; we are arrogant. And there's nowhere better for this."

The plan remains more concept than reality. Goswick has yet to line up funding.

Moore said she, Goswick and other principals are putting together a business plan that should be completed by mid- or late-January and will outline the project's cost, size and funding strategy.

It's possible the shared-equipment facility would be built with grants from the government and foundations. Money for operational expenses would come from businesses renting space and using the specialized equipment.

Goswick, who spent much of his career marketing real estate before becoming a developer, acknowledged that the current economic climate has done the project few favors.

"If it was easy, someone else would have done it," he said.

"There are newer challenges, but there's money out there. It's been pulled out of the stock market. Some of that money wants to find unique, great opportunities. And I think nanotechnology represents that."